As is well known and understood, individuals who have the need to use a public restroom are not very desirous of using the toilet seat generally provided. In some areas of the country and of the world, apparatus may be available to provide toilet seat shaped tissue paper covers to be placed over the seat prior to use. Although helpful, those covers are of a basic configuration, and do not always cover the seat area in question, and are not always available because of the cost involved in installation and in maintenance.
As is also well known and appreciated, the process of addressing this problem then typically entails the simple process of tearing various lengths of toilet paper from off the roll in an attempt to correspond to the configuration of the seat. While satisfactory in concept, the carrying out of such plan often suffers, as the laid-out strips of paper do not readily remain in place, but shift in position, both prior to and during use. Of perhaps greater importance, however, is that not all the public restroom facilities offer toilet paper (in rolls), but provide folded, inter-leaved sheets, to then be positioned one adjacent the other on the toilet seat in going around the toilet seat shape. Besides being cumbersome to follow--and difficult to retain the individual sheet sections in position--, this procedure is both time consuming to carry out, and awkward in realization.
As an alternative to the use of such protective devices, others have come forward to suggest that disinfecting cleansing pads be employed, instead. These pads, the arguments go, can be pre-moistened with a germicidal, or other, cleansing agent, can be small enough to be easily carried about, and can be made readily available to wipe the surface of the toilet seat prior to its use. Suggestions abound as to the specific formulation of the antiseptic solution, with or without scenting, with various drying rates, with a variety of shelf lives prior to use, and with various degrees of constructions so as to be decomposable in water, so as to be flushed away with the toilet wastes. Prior art descriptions, for example, suggest that pads be made of synthetic fibers are preferable to using natural fibers; others suggest formulations of resins to provide wet strength along with "flushability"; some prior art pronouncement point out the advisability of incorporating alcoholic solutions, mercury zinc cyanide solutions, with, or without, quick-drying characteristics.
However, and as will be seen, except for perhaps cost, there does not appear to be a great deal of difference between individual ones of these suggested alternatives, as would induce an individual to purchase one as compared to the other. And, as will also be seen, one of the major disadvantages in all of these suggested alternatives is that the individual must, of necessity, place his, or her, hand close to the unsanitized toilet seat in utilizing the cleansing pad being offered. Typical of such type of device is the one shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,891, where a 2".times.2" pad is described, to have a raisable thumb tab to be grasped in use--as there shown, the tab is of the order of perhaps 1/2"; and, as will be seen, even the dimensions afforded may not be enough to disinfect the toilet seat in a single pass, but repeated back-and-forth actions would be generally required to sanitize the entire seat surface which may be contacted during use.